“Yeah. You’ve done enough for one night.”
I foundher sitting on the edge of the pier, boots dangling over the water, the city reflecting in broken ripples below. I dropped down beside her, careful to keep enough distance that she could close it if she wanted to.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said without looking at me. “Tell me he’s gone.”
“I want to,” I admitted. “But men like Reese don’t die clean. Until I see his body, then I’ll say he’s dead.”
She exhaled, a sound halfway between relief and defeat. “Then what did we just risk our lives for?”
“For the people who didn’t have a choice,” I said. “And for the ones who’ll never know what almost happened.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “You sound like a recruitment poster.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Except I stopped believing in slogans a long time ago.”
Silence stretched. The river slapped against the pilings. A gull cried somewhere in the fog.
“You did the right thing, Julia.”
Her jaw tightened. “Feels like the wrong one.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You saved more lives than you’ll ever count. That doesn’t erase the weight—it just means you can carry it.”
She looked at me then, really looked, and whatever wall she’d been holding up started to crack. “And you? You just carry everybody else’s?”
“Only the ones I can’t lose,” I said quietly.
Her hand brushed mine—hesitant, then steady. “You’re terrible at boundaries, Hawk.”
“I’m getting better,” I said. “Mostly because of you.”
She smiled, faint and tired but real. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Aaron’s voicecame through the comm clipped to my vest, breaking the fragile calm.
“Miles just found something. Data burst on a classified frequency—origin point matches Reese’s beacon pattern. Somebody out there just activated another node.”
Julia stood, the fatigue falling away like a discarded coat. “You mean—”
“He’s alive,” I finished for her. “And he’s already moving pieces.”
Aaron’s voice hardened. “Pack up. We’ve got coordinates.”
I looked at Julia. Her eyes were clear again, fierce. “Guess we don’t get our break.”
She smiled without humor. “Wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway.”
I rose beside her, the wind catching our jackets. Somewhere upriver, the first light of morning hit the windows of the Capitol like a warning flare.
“He wants a war,” I said.
“Then he just picked the wrong soldiers.”
22
Julia
